


Red Star In Morning

by icarus_chained



Category: Airwolf
Genre: Betrayal, Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Promises, Prompt Fic, Scars, Spies & Secret Agents, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Moffett's virus, String and Michael pick apart some old ghosts, and some future ones too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Star In Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fic, because I'm still in an Airwolf sort of mood. Coda to episode 2x03, Moffett's Ghost, and mentioning episodes 1x01, Shadow of the Hawke, and 1x07, Fight Like A Dove.

The thrum of chopper blades was barely even a sound yet when String picked it up, well out over the lake and inaudible yet to anyone who wasn't him or Tet. Quieter even than he'd usually pick it up, but then he had been waiting for it. 

He sat still for a minute, pulling the remains of the silence up around him. Then, smiling faintly, he put up the cello bow and went to get the good wine. He figured it was going to be one of those nights.

Judging by the expression on Michael's face when he limped up to the door ten minutes later, alone while the chopper lifted off again behind him, he'd figured right. The spy was leaning slightly more heavily on his cane than usual, pausing in the doorway to lean on the doorjamb and raise a questioning eyebrow at String. A mocking little 'May I come in?' from a man who had a standing invitation mostly by dint of just not taking no for an answer.

Yeah, String thought. Michael was in fine temper.

"Come on in," he offered mildly, raising a bottle of very nice red in the spy's direction. "You look like you could use a rest, Michael."

The second eyebrow went up to join the first, a long, slightly disbelieving look. "Do I?" Michael murmured, soft as a blade, hitching his cane up to rest on his shoulder as he stalked haltingly into the room and dropped himself down into 'his' chair. "Hmm. I wonder why that might be."

String shook his head, coming out around the bar with the bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. Michael looked at him for a long second before accepting his, taking it with a deliberately broad smile that was more teeth than gratitude, but he _did_ accept it. That was a good sign. 

Probably.

"I take it NORAD still aren't happy with you, then." String settled back into the chair opposite, swirling his own glass gently, his eyes creasing a little at the corners. Hell. Might as well dive right in. Nobody'd ever accused him of cowardice, after all. Foolhardiness, maybe, but never that. 

"Not happy," Michael repeated slowly, sinking back into his chair with aggressive grace. "Given that I've just had to admit to testing a stealth aircraft in US airspace, lying about it, losing control of it, and then creating phantom radar signatures that almost started world war three, _yes_ , you could say they're not happy with me." He growled faintly. "In my experience, very few people are happy when someone else's secret weapon goes rogue on top of them. Wouldn't you agree?"

String shrugged noncommittally, long experience with Dom having taught him not to interrupt someone who was just getting started. Fury flashed across Michael's face, muscles bunching under that white suit - the full Archangel kit rather than the softer gear he wore for more friendly visits - and for a second String thought he'd be cleaning glass shards up off the carpet behind him. Then ... then the temper subsided in Michael's remaining eye, taut muscles easing loose again, and String relaxed a little.

"You took one hell of a risk," the spy accused softly, sinking into his seat more from exhaustion now than challenge. " _Dammit_ , Hawke. Do you know how many people could have been killed? Moffett was a madman. He'd have aimed for the largest bodycount he could get, and with Airwolf, that's pretty large!"

String eased forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied the man. "I know," he said quietly. He did. He'd known from the moment they'd blown that drone out of the sky. It hadn't changed anything.

Michael stared at him, anger still bubbling under the surface, pained creases mapped around his eyes, peeking out from beneath a blackened lens. "She should have been grounded," he grit out, pointing a finger in String's direction, tired and emphatic. "You can't make guarantees like that, Hawke. Not with that many lives. Not against ..."

"Not against Moffett?" String asked, holding the man's gaze. Watching the minute flinch, the tremor. Shaking his head in response to it. "I couldn't ground her, Michael. I couldn't stop the mission. And I knew you wouldn't be rational about it. Not when it was Moffett."

"... _Rational_!?" Michael lurched upright, his glass clenched in his fist, disturbing his cane enough that it slid down the chair to land with a clatter on the floor. He ignored it. They both did. "I've just spent several hours explaining why my rogue helicopter was compromised by a madman and almost started _world war three_! A helicopter _you_ were flying, against my orders. And you don't think I'm being _rational_ about it?"

"You weren't seeing Airwolf," String interrupted. Speaking right over Michael's anger, even as the spy flashed to furious protest. "You weren't seeing the current situation, either. As soon as Moffett appeared on that screen, Michael, all you were seeing was _Red Star_."

The words dropped like rocks into the sudden silence. Michael froze, snapped still like a rod had slammed through him, and for a brief second the fury in his eye turned molten, turned _lethal_. If String had never been afraid of the man before, he reckoned he might have started then. Except for one fact. One small, tiny fact, that had made the difference between life and death between them before.

He trusted Michael with his life. Had for quite a while now. And he hadn't ever been a coward.

"Tell me I'm wrong," he said softly, into the quiver of rage keeping Michael frozen. "Tell me that wasn't what you were thinking when you sent Dr Hansen that bomb. Tell me that wasn't what was in your head when you decided to risk Dr Burton's work, his life, by grounding his best chance to get out of Russia." He paused, tried to gentle his tone. "You've taken risks before, Michael. Bigger ones. You've played Kansas City Shuffle with the Israelis and the Iranians and a missile system that could start a few wars on its own. You've picked fights with NORAD and the DOD and anyone else that got in your way, and you've won. But when it's Moffett ..."

When it was Moffett, suddenly Michael was visibly angry, visibly disturbed. When it was Moffett, Michael went straight for bombs, for getting the problem on the ground _now_ and making sure it stayed there. When it was Moffett, Michael couldn't draw the reserves to talk someone around, to hold his ground, and instead headed right for sabotage. 

When it was Moffett, suddenly Michael wasn't rubbing at his mustache, he was rubbing at his _glasses_ , unconsciously touching his hand towards that blackened lens and the absence underneath it.

Back in the present moment, there was a soft click, delicate, as Michael set his glass down _very carefully_. The man's breathing was carefully, rigidly steady, controlled to within an inch of its life, and he'd looked away from String. Leaned down to pick up his cane instead, focusing on the white clench of his knuckles around the wood.

"... You haven't faced him in Airwolf," the man said finally, his voice as carefully steady as his breathing. He'd turned his head, facing his good eye towards String despite not looking at him, instinctively shielding his damaged one. "You stole it right out from under him, but you've never ... you've never looked down the barrel of those chain guns to the madman behind them, and known he was going to fire. You've never looked at that machine and known she was going to kill you, everyone around you, because you made the mistake of allowing the one man into her cockpit that should never have been trusted with her. You've never had two seconds warning and then ..."

And then hell. Then fire and metal and rubble, the world exploding around you and dozens of people dead or dying. Then something carving out your eye, nailing your knee to the floor, tearing at the body shielded beneath yours. It was all too easy to imagine. Michael flung protectively across Marella, the wash of red from that hidden eye soaking through a shredded white suit. String had seen combat. He'd seen missile damage, the remains left behind, the survivors pulled out of the rubble. It was ... all too painfully easy to slot Michael into those memories, and guess how it would have been.

Michael took a breath, long and deep, and looked up. Looked back at String, chin tilting defiantly, and it wasn't anger now. Too tired, too pained to be angry. Michael looked across and it was plain exhaustion String was seeing in him.

"Yes," Michael said heavily, dropping the point of his cane to the floor with a soft thud. "Yes, I was seeing Red Star. I was _there_ , Hawke. I've stood under Airwolf's guns and had them fire, I know _exactly_ what she can do with that maniac in charge of her. Did you really think I was going to let it happen again?"

String shook his head, feeling his eyes crease up at the corners. Watched Michael, long enough to see the comprehension dawn in that single, tired eye. "No, I didn't," he agreed, wry and gentle. "I thought that as soon as you saw that 'last will and testament', you'd take Airwolf, ground her, tear her apart at the seams if you had to. Anything to make sure he couldn't use her against you or your people. And I couldn't let that happen."

Michael sighed, his shoulders dropping as he slumped back in his seat. He raised one hand to press his knuckles against his forehead, closing his eyes beneath it.

"So I've learned," he grumbled, but there was humour in it now. A wry, tired acknowledgement, and maybe a touch of grudging amusement. "You can be a little _irrational_ about it at times. I have noticed that."

String smiled softly, acknowledging the hit. Airwolf was his baby, his mission, his link to Sinjin. He'd do one hell of a lot to keep her, they both knew that. Michael had been pretty forbearing about it, considering that String had stolen her out from under him, used her sometimes in ways the spy couldn't agree with.

They'd forgiven each other for a lot of betrayals over the years, he thought absently. Both small and large. And maybe ... maybe for much the same reasons.

"It wasn't just Moffett in that cockpit this time," he said, soft enough that Michael opened his eye again, blinked over at him. String leaned towards him, quiet and earnest. Seeing that image again, a white suit turned red, death layered over the scarred but vital man in front of him. Rejecting it, now and always. "He wasn't the only one flying her, Michael. And I won't ever fire on you. I think you know that."

He smiled, wry and crooked, remembering a white figure on a balcony in Paraguay, remembering a man who'd walked into a nest of arms dealers for the sole purpose of warning the Lady away, risking life and limb from all sides to accomplish it. Remembering that Red Star had not been the last time Michael had stood beneath Airwolf's guns, that the second time he'd walked out in front of them willingly.

Part of that had been courage. Part of that had been the fact that Michael was no coward either, and never had been. But part of it ... had been more than that. String knew it. And so did Michael.

"... I can't make the same promise," Michael said at last. Tired and warm, and as much of an acknowledgement as the spy could afford to give. "I don't always get to choose who I'm firing at. And if you keep taking these kinds of _risks_ ..."

He trailed off pointedly, stabbing a finger in String's direction, but he was smiling now as well. Repeating his script by rote, the game they'd been playing for a while now. String grinned at him, finally letting himself ease, leaning back in his chair and picking up his wine for the first time in more than half an hour.

"Just so long as you feel bad about it when it happens," he agreed, raising his glass in toast.

There was a pained flicker across Michael's face, then. A glimpse of something old and tired that had been in this bloody business for a long, long time, a glimpse of the man who sent people out to die. His echoing toast was slower, more thoughtful. 

"I will," he said, soft and honest, in lieu of all the promises he couldn't allow himself to make. Oath and apology, all in one. He looked up, met String's eyes with his single remaining one, and smiled tiredly. "I'll feel bad about it, Hawke. More than you can know."

... Maybe not, String thought, tipping his chin in wordless acknowledgement, the only answer he could give. Maybe he didn't know. But he thought he might have some idea. 

Enough, in the end, to trust a man with his life. 

If not necessarily his Lady.

**Author's Note:**

> I did like that about the episode: that it was obviously drawing on Red Star without actually making explicit mention of it in the dialogue. Things like Michael touching his glasses, or the fact that I think it's the first time we see him doing PT exercises for his leg (in the office in a three-piece suit surrounded by aides while a general gets up in his face, mind you, because _Archangel_ ). Nobody ever mentions it as the reason Michael is visibly less composed than usual, but the episode keeps drawing attention to his physical scars from it.


End file.
